Playing for Time
by Slash4Femme
Summary: Giles fences and remembers


This story is in response to a challenge to write about Giles and fencing. Thanks to the people at _I'd Like to Test That Theory_, the Giles' writers zone, for posting such interesting challenges including this one. Also thanks to all the wonderful people at the Tri City Academy of The Sword, who taught me everything I know about fencing with patience and grace.

"The history of the sword is the history of humanity." (Sir Richard F Burton 1821-1890)

**Playing for Time**

Lunge, lunge, parries, thrust. . . it's like dancing. That's what his fencing master always said any way. Giles can almost hear the old man's voice now, "lunge, lunge, lunge" the old man would scream hitting the floor with his cane to emphasize each action. "young man" he'd point the cane at Giles "young man, you are too slow, your arm is too low and your feet are turned in the wrong way." a pause to give Giles a chance to let the error of his ways sink in then "Fix It!" the master would bark "and lets try it again, lunge, lunge, lunge. . ." Giles would be in class at the fencing academy, all day, first the group class, then in his one-on-one with the master. He would lunge, parry and thrust his way across the long, hot and tightly closed room until he was ready to faint from heat and exertion. Sometimes he would end up blacking-out in the shower at the end of a long day at the academy. At the time he had hated it, the heat, the cramped rooms, hated the hard work, the constant discipline, hated the fencing master. But his grandmother had insisted, and what grandmother said, was done, it was that simple.

"I think it's sexy" Ethan had come around the couch where he had been lounging, to take the sword out of Giles' hands. He hefted it, holding it awkwardly in his fist, and swished it through the air experimentally. Giles' fingers itched to grab the sword way and teach the younger man how to hold and use it right, but instead he balled his hands into fists and stuffed them in the pockets of his jacket. Ethan put the tip of the sword on the ground and leaned on it as if it were a cane giving Giles his best come-hither look. Giles was as ever struck by the beauty of the other man. His dark hair, falling around a narrow pixie face, his dark eyes made darker by the mascara he always wore, and his long fine fingers rapped around the sword. Giles always felts older when he's around Ethan, nineteen to Ethan's sixteen years, not at all the little boy his grandmother always treated him as. He was taller then Ethan with broader shoulders and prefers black leather, to Ethan's silk.

"I think a man with a sword is sexy" Ethan says moving around to rap one arm around Giles' waste.

"but then" he continues gazing up into Giles eyes "I think your always sexy"

Giles raps one of his arms around Ethan's waist pulling the younger man roughly against his chest. Giles hand moves up Ethan's back to twist into his hair. "Am I?" he asks, almost growls, as his mouth moves down fiercely to claim Ethan's.

Lunge, lunge, thrust. He enjoys it. He enjoys the discipline, the hard work, the precision, the routine. All the thinks he used to hate about it really, now equal order and stability in his life and order to Giles equals happiness. And there's something else, an image in the back of his head. Ethan's voice coming down, twenty five years or more,

"I think a man with a sword is sexy."

The counsel fired him. And in one swift action erasing everything that Giles had stood for these last twenty years everything his grandmother had pushed him for, fought for, finally died knowing he had. Well if they wanted to they could, that was their power and their right. Giles lunges once more hitting the practice dummy square in the chest. He had started fencing again. The first time in a long time and he'd reopened the piercing in his ear. Let them take him off the counsel, let them take way his positions, his titles, his standing, there was more to him then that, much more, and he was ready to find it again. Find himself.


End file.
